tribe called Banteks, of a much less tractable disposition, who have hitherto
resisted all efforts of the Dutch Government to induce them to adopt any
systematic cultivation. These remain in a ruder condition, but engage themselves
willingly as occasional porters and labourers, for which their greater strength and
activity well adapt them.
No doubt the system here sketched seems open to serious objection. It is to a
certain extent despotic, and interferes with free trade, free labour, and free
communication. A native cannot leave his village without a pass, and cannot
engage himself to any merchant or captain without a Government permit. The
coffee has all to be sold to Government, at less than half the price that the local
merchant would give for it, and he consequently cries out loudly against
"monopoly" and "oppression." He forgets, however, that the coffee plantations
were established by the Government at great outlay of capital and skill; that it
gives free education to the people, and that the monopoly is in lieu of taxation.
He forgets that the product he wants to purchase and make a profit by, is the
creation of the Government, without whom the people would still be savages. He
knows very well that free trade would, as its first result, lead to the importation
of whole cargoes of arrack, which would be carried over the country and
exchanged for coffee. That drunkenness and poverty would spread over the land;
that the public coffee plantations would not be kept up; that the quality and
quantity of the coffee would soon deteriorate; that traders and merchants would
get rich, but that the people would relapse into poverty and barbarism. That such
is invariably the result of free trade with any savage tribes who possess a
valuable product, native or cultivated, is well known to those who have visited
such people; but we might even anticipate from general principles that evil
results would happen.
If there is one thing rather than another to which the grand law of continuity
or development will apply, it is to human progress. There are certain stages
through which society must pass in its onward march from barbarism to
civilization. Now one of these stages has always been some form or other of
despotism, such as feudalism or servitude, or a despotic paternal government;
and we have every reason to believe that it is not possible for humanity to leap
over this transition epoch, and pass at once from pure savagery to free
civilization. The Dutch system attempts to supply this missing link, and to bring
the people on by gradual steps to that higher civilization, which we (the English)
try to force upon them at once. Our system has always failed. We demoralize
and we extirpate, but we never really civilize. Whether the Dutch system can
permanently succeed is but doubtful, since it may not be possible to compress